


I Will Be With You Again

by phoebesmum



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Multi, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-18
Updated: 2009-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-03 07:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoebesmum/pseuds/phoebesmum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A romantic odyssey for Dan, on New Years' Days from 1985 to 2002.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Be With You Again

**Author's Note:**

> Written January 2006. At work, actually, by hand, while the computers were down. It was that or do the filing.

_It's 1985._

 

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. Not that he thought the first time should be special, or any crap like that. _Girls_ thought that way. Maybe. Some of them. Guys – well, for a guy, any guy who could call himself that, virginity was an embarrassing stigma, something to be abandoned as early as possible. _How_ didn't matter much, _where_ still less. Nor did _with whom_. Except …

 

"I don't do this," he says, bewildered, and the other boy laughs and says, "You did last night!"

 

Danny would like to deny it, but when he goes to sit up he catches his breath, and knows he can't. He _hurts_, and that can't be good. But the other boy – whoever he is, and Danny can't possibly ask his name now – he's relaxed and laughing, leaning over to kiss him (and the kiss isn't bad; not bad at all), sliding a hand down between their bodies. That, though; that's … weird. Danny tenses, and the boy frowns and pulls away, and now it's his turn to sound bewildered.

 

"You're not into it? I thought – "

 

"I – " Danny begins, and then he thinks that it's a little late now to be having second thoughts. In any case: who knows what he missed, last night, when he was out of it? _In vino veritas_ (although it'd been vodka he'd been drinking at last night's party, not wine. Vodka, and beer, and whatever that weird pink stuff was); maybe whatever he said and did when he was wasted was the real Dan Rydell, whoever _he_ might be. So he forces himself to breathe, and manages a smile.

 

"Yeah," he says, reaches for the other boy's wrist, moves his hand back to where it had been. "Yeah. It's fine. It's great."

 

And, know what? After a moment or so, it really is.

 

Happy New Year.

 

***

 

_It's 1988._

 

He didn't go home for the holidays that year.

 

Instead, he stayed in college; kept to his dorm room. Studied. Read. Listened to music. Slept. Slept a _lot_. Kept himself _to_ himself; kept his head down, flew under the radar.

 

It was what he'd been doing all year. All his life. If you counted that year, his life, from the end of September.

 

Come New Year's Eve, there's a knock on his door. He thinks he'll ignore it, but then, not really knowing why himself, he drags himself off the bed and answers it.

 

The girls along the hall are having a party.

 

_And I should care, because?_ he wants to say, or _What's it to me?_ But a very long time ago, in that other life, the life he'd lived before September, his mother had taught him to be polite to girls, and so he forces a smile and lies: he'd love to.

 

He picks up a bottle of cheap red from the bodega; thinks he'll maybe only have to show his face for an hour or so, then slip away. He can deal with that. If he's got by so far, then maybe, just maybe, he can deal with anything life throws at him.

 

He keeps on thinking that, right up until the door opens with a rush of heat and he's thrown into a press of people, surrounded by red, sweaty faces and loud, obnoxious laughter. The music's turned up loud, and it's the sort of music you only ever find in girls' CD collections, everyone else but him seems to be kissing a partner as if they'll never come up for air again, and the sweet, forbidden scent of pot brings tears, literal tears, to his eyes. So he tries to slink away, wondering why all these other kids seem so young, so naïve, or maybe it's him, maybe he's the one who got old. Whatever the case, it happened so suddenly he hadn't even realised it until now. He ducks, he dives, he bobs and weaves, and he's nearly to the door when the smallest and prettiest and blondest of the girls suddenly pops up in front of him, pins him against a wall, laughing up at him.

 

"Hit and run, Danny," she says, over and over, her words slurring into one long word that at first makes no sense, but eventually sinks in. "You're so hit and run!"

 

And that's about the last thing he needs, car crash metaphors, but there's no way he's letting her know that. So he leans down and kisses her to shut her up. She lets him go, then, back to his own dorm, but she makes sure he takes her along with him, his hand clutched tight in hers.

 

She's gone the next morning; all there is to mark his New Year is a stain on the sheets and the taste of stale wine in his throat.

 

Who's hit and run now?

 

***

 

_It's 1989._

 

(Danny didn't go home for the holidays again that year. He thinks maybe he'll never go home again.)

 

1988 was the year Dan spent falling into bed with pretty nearly anyone, male, female, whatever, anyone who'd smile at him, anyone who'd laugh at his jokes. That was the year of the New Year's Eve party where he slept with, well, no, nobody _slept_, but anyway, slept with at least three of the girls there, never learning any of their names, not caring. And 1989 was the year when he was plagued by a painful, burning sensation, the year when he learned more than he had ever wanted to know about the nature of antibiotics.

 

It's the year when his one New Year's resolution is "Always, _always,_ use a condom". And that's the one New Year's resolution he's ever managed to keep.

 

***

 

 

 

_It's 1994 …_

 

… and just over a month since their very first broadcast. Their first Christmas on air. Their first New Year.

 

They'd never thought they'd make it this far. And yet, here, undeniably, they are. Dan more so than Casey; Casey's wife is sick, or supposedly sick, which is far from unusual, and Casey has stayed home to take care of the baby – _and it's about time they stopped calling the kid that_, Dan reflects, also not for the first time. He worries about Charlie, almost as much as he worries about Casey, Casey, who's been odd and nervy and on edge … well: okay, Casey's _always_ a little bit that way, has been that way for most of his life, Dan suspects, but recently he's been more so even than usual. For weeks, a couple of months, now.

 

So Dan's on his own, and the station's New Year party is in full swing. It's the first office party Dan's ever experienced, and he wasn't sure what to expect, but so far it's been much like any other party, much like the ones in college: pretty awful. Most people don't want to drink in front of their work colleagues, afraid of going too far and looking like a fool; the ones who _are_ drinking are busy proving the sober ones' point. Everyone's trying not to talk about work, only to find that they have no other interests in common. Whoever's in charge of the music has evidently decided that Texas = Country &amp; Western. And the air conditioning's set to 'microwave'.

 

But he'd felt he had to come; had to socialise. He's been living a sort of self-imposed exile since he got here, miles away from his friends and everything that's familiar to him, uncertain of his standing among his colleagues. Christmas was bad enough, when almost nobody at the station understood why he didn't celebrate it, and the few who did dutifully wished him Happy Chanukah. He can't go on that way. The last thing he needs is a reputation – for being difficult, having a bad attitude, just for being weird. Not now, not at the start of his career. Not ever, not really.

 

Dan's never been shy; he has the knack of making himself popular, always charming, flirtatious without being aggressive. He's liked wherever he goes, he makes friends easily. But Lone Star caught him off-balance. He wasn't expecting this level of success, not so soon; he wasn't prepared for it. Not that he'd change it – he isn't crazy, he knows how lucky he is – but, in his more introspective moments (moments he tries his best to avoid altogether), he has to admit that maybe he's in over his head, that maybe, if not for Casey, he'd be floundering.

 

If not for Casey he wouldn't be here. But here he is; only to find Casey gone, much of the time, emotionally if not physically, and often both. And Dan's left here alone, to sink or swim, as best he can.

 

He's determined that it's going to be 'swim'. He only wishes that someone would throw him some trainer wings.

 

Life's not like that, though, out here in the real world. If you can't make it on your own, then you can't make it at all. He gets that. He can deal.

 

And as he squares his shoulders, takes a deep breath, and puts on his game face, ready to be one of the team, the head of the team stumbles into him, says "Whoops!" or, actually, 'whoopsh!', and giggles.

 

"Dan!" she states, when she registers who he is, and reaches up her hands to his shoulders. "Danny, Danny, Danny!" But she's peering round, trying to see behind him, and he knows what she's looking for. More precisely: who.

 

"Casey's not here, Dana," he tells her, stating it as simply and as clearly as he can.

 

She squints up at him. "Not here?"

 

"No," he says, and tries to detach himself, without success. She sort-of flops forward, landing against his chest.

 

"No Casey," she says sadly, and sighs, turning her head to rest … pretty uncomfortably, actually, he would think, her cheek pillowed against the studs of his dress shirt. He breathes a little sigh of his own, and wraps his arms loosely around her, as much to keep her upright as anything. To his alarm, that makes her beam up at him. "But _you're _here, Danny," she announces. Her arms are around his waist now; she tightens them and murmurs something that includes the word 'lovely'.

 

So it turns out that all those years of college weren't wasted. If nothing else, they've taught him how to get drunk young women back to their dorm rooms, apartments, parents' houses, friends' sofas, with the least possible trouble or embarrassment for anyone concerned. Dana, at least, is past the age for the more hazardous of those locations; in fact (thank the lord for small mercies) she's staying in the hotel, which means he doesn't have too far to manoeuvre her, or too many people to avoid.

 

She gets the wrong message. Of course she does, that was inevitable. As soon as the door closes behind them, she's on him, hands tangled in his hair, her mouth against his. He somehow manages to put her away from him; not without regret, but … no; it would be bad, in so many, many different ways.

 

"Dana," he says, and then again, louder, "Dana!"

 

She blinks at him, bleary, unfocused. He steers her over to the armchair in the corner, gets her settled, locates the minibar and pulls her out a bottle of water, uncaps it and puts it into her hand. He watches her gulp it down, and wonders whether he should stay, whether she's safe on her own. (Whether _he_ would be safe, if he stayed; that's another consideration entirely.) He thinks, on the whole, that she will be. She's a grown woman, and he's seen worse. Hell, he's _been_ worse. But then – he's been worse, and lived to regret it. So he asks, will she be okay, and she tilts her head to one side, her eyes surprisingly sharp.

 

"What would you say," she asks him, "if I asked you to stay?" She almost sounds sober now, but the way she leans forward, practically boneless, tells him how far that is from the truth. He sighs.

 

"I'd say that you're drunk," he says, "and that you're my boss. So that's a double 'no'."

 

She says, "Huh," and slumps back into the chair. A small, sly smile curves her mouth. "And if I wasn't drunk?" she demands. "And if I wasn't your boss?"

 

He reaches out and pats her arm. "Dana, if it's all the same to you, I'd like you to stay my boss for quite a while yet. I _like_ my job."

 

"You like Casey," she snaps and then, as suddenly as that, she's fast asleep. Which is just as well, because he has no answer for her.

 

In the morning, Dana will apologise to him for the night before. "Was I really drunk?" she'll ask. "I didn't say anything terrible – did I?" And he'll say no, Dana, no, of course you didn't, and he'll say it with conviction. Because if there's only him to remember, then perhaps the whole thing never happened.

 

Best keep it that way.

 

***

 

_It's 1995._

 

They're checking out of the St Paul Radisson, and trying to avoid one another's eyes.

 

Dan knows that they will never speak of this.

 

***

_It's 2002 …_

 

… and today they're sleeping late. Last night they made an informed decision to break with tradition by being traditional: they were in Times Square to watch the old year breathe its last. Any other year it would never have occurred to them to venture out there, be jostled by the crowds, shiver in the cold, not when they could stay home, safe and warm, just the two of them together; but 2001 had not been like any other year, not what anyone had expected from the millennium. Not what anyone had expected. But they'd come through it; that's the important thing, the thing to focus on. They'd survived, and so had the show. (For a while, there, it hadn't been certain. Nothing had been certain …)

 

No. Don't think that way. It's in the past, now, behind them, along with everything else: the mistakes, the misunderstandings, the lies, the pretence, the long years squandered in denial. Don't waste precious time regretting what might have been, what should have been. All that's left is what matters.

 

Dan slips quietly out of bed, pulls a sweater on over his pyjama pants – the apartment's chilly in the mornings, although, technically, it's already afternoon – and crosses to the window, pulls back the curtain to let the cold winter sunlight stream in. He rests his palms on the windowsill, leans forward to get a better look at the city below. His city; his home. Finally, the place he wants to be, the place he needs to be, is the place where he is. And all that he's been looking for, all his life … it's here. It's here and now.

 

He turns back into the room, and smiles when he sees Casey, sitting up in bed, shielding his eyes against the glare and scowling.

 

"Are we getting up today?" he asks, and Casey answers by sliding back down and pulling the sheets up to his chin.

 

"Not if I can help it," he announces. Dan smiles again at the determination in his voice, and doesn't argue. He stands beside the bed, watching his partner; his eyes are filled with infinite fondness.

 

"I'll bring you coffee," he says, and, as he passes, he stoops, brushes a kiss against Casey's cheek. And Casey catches his wrist, reaches up and pulls Dan to him; this kiss is more than a mere brush of lips, far more. When they part, Dan is dazed, touching a hand to his mouth in wonder, and now it's Casey who is smiling.

 

He says, "Happy New Year, Danny." And, for once, Dan believes it may even be the truth.

 

***

 


End file.
